Another City Falls in Iraq - Tikrit falls to militants

Tikrit (Iraq) (AFP) - Militants took control of the Iraqi city of Tikrit and freed hundreds of prisoners on Wednesday, police said, the second
provincial capital to fall in two days.

Mosul fell yesterday. Now Tikrit has fallen.

"All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants," a police colonel said of the Salaheddin provincial capital, which lies roughly half way
between Baghdad and Iraq's second city Mosul which fell on Tuesday.

A police brigadier general said that the militants attacked from the north, west and south of the city, and that they were from powerful jihadist
group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

This new offensive started just a few days ago, and has been extremely successful for the ISIL. All of Nineveh province is now under their control,
parts of Salaheddin and parts of Kirkuk are also now under their control. The Iraqi army basically fled these areas immediately once they came under
attack. No doubt the ISIL has captured a large amount of equipment and bolstered their numbers with all of the prisoners freed.

With the rate this is going, expect more cities/provinces to fall in the next few days.

I am sure they are enjoying all those weapons the US taxpayers payed for. Why did we go there again? Oh yeah, we wanted to fatten a few pockets rather
than rebuilding our own crumbling infrastructure. Sounds about right....

LMAO great job Bush, Cheney, Clinton and Obama...you caused more problems then you solved. You made Iraq unstable and you made the rest of the world
hate us. Put all their brains together you wouldn't have enough intelligence to blow your nose.

LMAO great job Bush, Cheney, Clinton and Obama...you caused more problems then you solved. You made Iraq unstable and you made the rest of the world
hate us. Put all their brains together you wouldn't have enough intelligence to blow your nose.

You got that right.
Now if we only knew who was behind the curtain, pulling the strings.

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
Somebody break out a Ouja board and lets get to asking the ghosts of servicemen if it was worth it.

I dunno if you meant for this to be disrespectful or to point out the irony..

But to those men who saved the lives of their brothers standing next to them at the cost of their own, yes it was worth it...

When you are in battle you dont fight for your president, you could give give two sh*ts about politics, why youre there in that moment doesnt matter,
what matters is making sure your buddies get back home to their families..

This is however as I think you were pointing out, a slap in the face to the men who fell in battle.

I hear ya as I too was stationed just outside Tikrit for all of 05 at Speicher. This is a sad thing that is happening here and could of been
avoided.

My observations of people there is dependent on who they were. The IA's for the most part we trusted, the police not at all. Our main job was IED
patrols and the large majority of them were placed within eyesight of IP checkpoints. One soldier was killed by an IED (on mothers day no less) that
was placed inside a hesco barrier right outside an IP's LPOP. Either they did it or their friends did.

Most times the IPs only had 1 magazine for their pistols. Then again I've known Iraqi MPs who had no firearms and only clubs. I can see how the army
ran when I'm willing to bet they had no ammo or even weapons to fight.

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
Somebody break out a Ouja board and lets get to asking the ghosts of servicemen if it was worth it.

This post nails it. My God .. what a damn waste. Young Americans offer to enter military service to defend America, and instead they get put into
some idiot politicians meat grinder on the other side of the planet. There will come a day when America really will need to be defended ... and by
then everyone will have decided not to volunteer because the politicians have abused them as canon fodder though the decades.

Why cant the moments be realized when your ordered to go to war, that the best way in making your buddies get back home is to never have them leave
and kill someone else s father or brother in another land.

All war is deception, all our leaders lie to us if war must be fought. It matters not whether the leaders are fanatical Muslims or Conservative
Christians, the only way to get support for war is through deception of some sort.

Wars cannot be fought with truth, because the truth is we all want to live.

(post by neversaynever removed for a serious terms and conditions violation)

The biggest question this raises is what does it mean for Iraqi Kurdistan?

The province of Nineveh with its capital Mosul has a massive Kurdish population.
The Kirkuk region is very Kurdish also, and I have no doubts the Kurds will destroy ISIS, they have a lot of oil wealth to spend on weapons and
training.
However the bigger question is with Iraq falling into chaos, and the Iraqi Kurdistan region relatively peaceful and affluent then the potentiality
exists that the Kurds may retake Mosul and Kirkuk, and then annex part of the region to their state and declare Independence, many locals would
welcome this as they are ethnic Kurds or despise the Baghdad government.

We are watching the breakup of Iraq, the Kurds may be the ultimate victors, reclaiming lost land and finally gaining their hard won independance.

Very interesting times.

(post by neversaynever removed for a serious terms and conditions violation)

Americans, as in people, don't have control over the government. Yes there are lot of war mongers disguised as average american, but still, im sure
they were misled by the spreading of "freedom and democracy".. which was more like pillage and rape.

I sorta wonder whether the west is letting Iraq become taken over by militants. because they know, that the only thing keeping Iran in check is a
unified Iraq. Saddam may have been a bad person but he sure kept his population under control. Ther Western powers may want another type of Saddam in
power

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